While reading Casey Winters’ post about finding product/market fit, I came across this new-to-me quote from Jeff Bezos pulled from an Amazon shareholder letter (emphasis mine):

One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’…You cannot rest on your laurels in this world. Customers won’t have it. How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There’s no single way to do it – it’s a combination of many things. But high standards (widely deployed and at all levels of detail) are certainly a big part of it.

.He goes on to describe his thoughts on having high standards. Namely, that high standards are:

1. Teachable (meaning it’s not an intrinsic quality). You can expose new people to a high standards environment, and they will adapt.
2. Domain or area-specific. This is critical. You can have high standards in one area that you know well and mediocre or even low standards in another. This could be due to hubris or a lack of understanding what “great” looks like in unfamiliar areas.

Since high standards are domain-specific, you have to first build your understanding of the landscape. Only then can you recognize what “great” truly looks like.

Why go through all of this work?

Naturally and most obviously, you’re going to build better products and services for customers – this would be reason enough! Perhaps a little less obvious: people are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention. More subtle: a culture of high standards is protective of all the “invisible” but crucial work that goes on in every company. I’m talking about the work that no one sees. The work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward – it’s part of what it means to be a professional.

As a closer, he adds, “high standards are fun! Once you’ve tasted high standards, there’s no going back.”

I love these two concepts—divinely discontent customers and high standards. It means our job building products is never over. We’ll always be refining, iterating, and trying to serve customers with ever-increasing expectations.